Monday, March 29, 2021

Can They Both Lose?

The headline might suggest that this is a post left over from before last November's presidential election -- or maybe a preview of what might be written about in the fall of 2024 -- but it isn't.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said during a recent Senate Finance Committee meeting that Amazon doesn't pay its "fair share" of taxes. Neither she nor anybody else knows what that means, but the senator is still under the delusion that we think she has actual knowledge of what she's talking about. Well, Amazon fired back that they pay the taxes that the law requires them to pay and that if someone should like them to pay more they might get those laws changed -- something which a United States Senator has a greater chance of accomplishing than, say, you or me.

Seeing as the snarky comment was made by tweet, Sen. Warren proved that former President Donald Trump is not the only person who can tweet limitless stupidity by disclaiming responsibility for the current laws. She didn't write them, Amazon's "armies of lawyers and lobbyists did." (Fun fact: Elizabeth Warren is herself a lawyer).

She went on to say that she wanted to "fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets." Now, Amazon's recent spate of self-righteousness about what books it will and won't sell has left them without much of my goodwill, not that it bothers the company all that much. But Senator Warren neglects a vital fact: One need not be a part of a big tech company to say snotty things about her. One need not even tweet them but might simply speak them aloud or write them in a blogpost. Because if there's one thing this black hole of political ineptitude can count on its that she will forever be giving people both snotty things to say about her as well as a long list of reasons to say them.

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